For Arab dissidents and journalists, the end of the Istanbul eldorado
"Today for us, Turkey, it's over," sums up Osama Gaweesh, an Egyptian journalist exiled in London, presenter for the Brotherhood channel Mekameleen. Nine years ago, he participated in the launch of this channel from the shores of the Bosphorus. Like many opponents of the regime of Marshal Sissi, Osama Gaweesh took refuge in Istanbul following the military coup hatched in the summer of 2013.
At the time, the geostrategic positioning of Turkey, an ally of Qatar, rival of the axis formed by Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, and its support for revolutionary movements had made the Turkish megalopolis the receptacle of the Arab revolts and their failures. In the space of a decade, more than 30,000 Egyptians have settled there, as well as many journalists, dissidents and activists from the Gulf, Yemen and Iraq.
But, for more than a year, in a context of economic crisis and diplomatic isolation, Ankara has been operating a geostrategic reversal vis-à-vis its rivals of yesteryear and is getting closer to the Egypt of Marshal Sissi. Since May 2021, intelligence services and diplomats from the two countries have been holding diplomatic talks with a view to reconciliation.
Fear of extradition
These geopolitical readjustments threaten the communities of Arab exiles in Istanbul, in particular the Egyptian diaspora. If Osama Gaweesh had already won London in 2018, many of his fellow citizens have joined him over the past year. Tel Moataz Matar, an iconic presenter who had already resigned from the Al-Sharq channel in April 2021, and who announced last January that he was relaunching a YouTube channel from London. Five months later, it was Mohammed Nasser, one of Mekameleen's leading presenters, who announced that he had swapped Turkey for Europe.
Because as a pledge of reconciliation with Ankara, Cairo is requesting the extradition of some of its nationals present on Turkish soil. Although so far the Turkish authorities have not carried out any extradition, they have nevertheless muzzled the Egyptian opposition media, including Mekameleen and Al-Watan, two channels affiliated with the Brotherhood movement, as well as the Al- Sharq, linked to secular dissident Ayman Nour. After first asking the directors of these media in the spring of 2021 to tone down their criticism of the Sisi regime, last May the Turkish government shut down the Mekameleen channel. She has since relocated from several European countries.
Turkey has also reconnected with the United Arab Emirates, which last November dedicated a $10 billion investment fund to it, as well as with Saudi Arabia. At the end of last March, Turkish justice closed the case of Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi, murdered by the henchmen of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. The 22 last June, he visited Ankara to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Radio silence
“Egyptian or not, all Arab journalists and dissidents who can leave Turkey at the moment,” assures Osama Gaweesh. For those who remain, self-censorship is now in order. "Ankara will allow Arab exiles to stay in Turkey on condition that they depoliticize themselves", analyzes Mustafa Menshawy, author of a book published in 2019 on young members of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in exile. Indeed, rare are the sources solicited by Liberation to have agreed to testify. Among the thirty or so Saudi dissidents present in Istanbul, some of whom once accepted requests for interviews, there is radio silence. Other Egyptians, including dissident Ayman Nour, apologize for not being able to speak "given the too sensitive context".
Beyond the circles of opponents, many members of the Arab diaspora in Istanbul are seeking to reach other countries. It is that, in addition to the geopolitical readjustments of their host country, they are in the grip of the economic crisis which is overwhelming Turkey and the anti-Arab racism which accompanies it. Among the fallback destinations, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are at the top. "There are so many Egyptians who take transit flights through Amsterdam in order to stop there and seek political asylum that for some time the airline KLM has been systematically preventing Egyptian nationals from boarding since Istanbul”, slips Mohammed, a former member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, a refugee in Turkey for six years.
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